This is one of two of ten S-10 Class switchers built in 1924 by the Lima Locomotive Works for the Southern Pacific to have escaped the scrap yard. You can see the other on the SP #1293 page of this website. A third survivor, #1294, displayed for many years at the San Francisco Zoo, eventually deteriorated in the city’s foggy climate to the extent that it was scrapped in 1981.
#1285 weighs 155,000 lbs and has 57” drivers and 20” x 26” cylinders. Operating at a boiler pressure of 200 psi, it delivered 31,020 lbs tractive effort. The standard Vanderbilt tender weighs 138,100 lbs light and has a capacity of 7,000 gallons of water and 2,940 gallons of oil.
#1285 was donated to the City of Monterey by the SP and moved to the current site in Dennis the Menace Park in 1956. As the engine was, for many years, a play thing for local children, additional grab rails were installed and it was subsequently fenced off from public use. However "inaccurate" these additions may make the locomotive look, it's better than the scrapper's torch, and they could easily be removed if there were a sudden urge for "authenticity".
